If you are going to shoot squirrel in an area with people, cars and livestock, you need to make sure you do a good job of checking your background before taking the shot. I know it’s sometimes hard to do when you are in the heat of the hunt, but you really need to do so so that you don’t end up giving all hunters a bad name.

Safe squirrel hunting people,

SquirrelSniper

The first thing we did (did I mention the Verminator went too) was to have the Verminator shoot some .17 HMR while I held the new puppy, who isn’t really that new anymore and hardly qualifies as a puppy. He’s around 6 months old, weighs about 60lbs and is an all black, Black Lab and Golden Retriever mix. He is by far the smartest dog I’ve ever owned, but that’s not saying much.

When the Verminator shot, I jumped and “Hunter”, looked at me like I was some kind of pansy. “I wasn’t ready”, I said, but he still kept looking at me like I was a wimp. I then had the Verminator fire off a couple more from the .17 just to make sure that his reaction wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t, he still looked at me like a pansy when I jumped the next two times.

“Well, that doesn’t seem to bother him”, I told the Verminator, “Why don’t you try the .223?”

“OK, but why don’t you let him go then, instead of hanging on to him, he’ll get jumpy if he feels you jump each time the gun goes off”, said the Vermin… ator.

I hate him sometimes!

So I let Hunter go, and he wandered off and started eating shell casings, gravel, cow crap and anything else that looked like it wouldn’t bite him back. That dog is a fricken goat, and will pack away tons of garbage, and then puke up this big pile of rocks and sticks and plastic bottle caps and stuff… he’s gross. But he is also soft, black and smart, so I’m willing to overlook a few small character flaws.

The Verminator then broke out the Bushmaster .223 Varminter and fired off a round. The dog, who was about 20 yards away, looked up with a look that said, “What the heck”? I told Vermin to do it again and the dog had the same reaction, but went back to eating whatever he was eating when the 2nd and 3rd shots were fired. After awhile, he came over and lay down under the bench where we were both shooting the .17′s and the .223′s. He is by far the calmest and coolest dog I’ve ever seen under fire… he doesn’t even look up while you’re shooting; unless you drop your doughnut or something, of course.

The first rifle I got out to get sighted in for this year’s sage rat season was my Savage .17 hmr with Accutrigger. I didn’t have any of my usual 17 gr. Hornady Ballistic Tips, so I used some CCI Hollow Points I had left over from last year. The first couple of groups were all over the place, until I remembered to squeeze instead of jerk. Then the groups settled down to a decent inch, with one group coming in at about 5/8th of an inch.

I then tried my Remington 17 gr. Ballistic Tips. The Remington’s shot about the same size groups as the CCI’s, but they shot like 2 whole inches to the right. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s a little weird don’tcha think?

The Bushmaster was OK, but I was still trying to use the Ammo I got at Wal-Mart last year, and it had a deviation of like 79, which leads to 2 inch groups at 100 yards. I need to go to the store and pick up a couple of different brands and see which does the best in my rifle.

All in all, I think I can hit some squirrels next month in Lakeview. I’ll also do some filming when I’m there, so look for some new squirrel shooting videos on Youtube in about a month.

SS
ps. I shot the Henry Golden Boy in 17HMR, and it works fine, but none of the rings I took to the range fit it, so I will have to get some and go back and sight it in later… Sorry.

I’m really upset about how my Bushmaster is shooting right now. I took it to the gun club on Wednesday to sight in my rifle now that it’s back from Bushmaster with the new trigger and scope combination. Short story is that it shot like crap.

Now, I don’t know if it’s the scope, the ammunition, the new trigger job or that maybe they screwed up when they polished my loading ramp when the company was fixing my jamming problem, but I used to be able to put 5-10 rounds in a 1/2 to 3/4 inch group at a 100 yards, but when I shot it on Wednesday, the groups were coming in at like 2-4 inches. (I almost threw up and cried… I’m a big baby when my pet guns get old and shaky and can’t shoot the eye out of a squirrel at a 100 yards anymore.)

I talked to the Verminator about it, and since he is way more into guns than I am, he said he would take it down and see if it was me or if it was the gun. After running the ammo I was using, which was Federal’s Power-Shok shooting a 50 Grain Jacketed Hollow Point, through the Chronograph, he concluded that it might just be the ammunition. Here are the 10 shots recorded out of my Bushmaster’s 20′ V-Match H-BAR.

1. 3201
2. 3215
3. 3224
4. 3229
5. 3276
6. 3256
7. 3235
8. 3231
9. 3263
10. 3228

According to the Verminator, if you take the high number and subtract the lowest number, it gives you some kind of spread or deviation that tells you something about the consistency and quality of the ammunition. So, if you take the high of 3276 and subtract the low number, which is 3201, you get a deviation of 75.

 3276
-3201
_____
= 75

The Veriminator says that the lower the number, the better the consistency and potential accuracy of the ammunition. He also said that the number needed to be under 20 to be any good and that what you really want is for your ammo to come in with a spread that is less than 10.

Now that we know that the ammunition might be the problem, I’m going to have to go to Bi-Mart and pick up 4 or 5 different types of ammunition and see which shoots the best in my rifle. I’m nor really looking forward to that, because the Federal Power-Shok is really cheap and worked really well in my rifle this year. If I have to change ammunition, I’m probably going to either spend a fortune for a higher grade ammo, or have to take the time out of my busy life and start reloading my own .223′s again. I’ll keep you posted.

So, now I have my .223 Bushmaster back in action, with a new-to-me, high dollar…. OK, medium dollar, scope on it. Add to that the new, Smooth-As-Butter, two stage sniper trigger and all I need now is a couple of hundred squirrels to shoot. To get ready for that I think I’m going to take it down to the range and see if I can put 10 rounds in the same 1/2 inch hole at 100 yards.

WOW I’m Looking forward to that….

On another note, the Verminator, who has really bad luck with .17HMR’s, just got his Ruger 77/17 back from the gunsmith. The barrel that came on the rifle had a “SLIGHT” problem, where it drifted rounds across the target as it got warm. It was really noticeable, and made the gun not worth a sh*t as far as accuracy went. So he is also feeling the need to run to the gun club and see how the new barrel works out.

I got my Bushmaster back today. While I haven’t fired it yet, it doesn’t really matter, because the trigger is “BUTTA”. (Butter for those of you who aren’t Jewish or watch old Saturday Night Live clips.) The old trigger had, I swear, a 15 lbs pull. The new Bushmaster 2-stage trigger they put in for me has like a 3 or 4 lbs pull. (Sing with me now: 1 little, 2 little, 3 dead squirrels, 4 little, 5 little, 6 dead squirrels….. sung to some song I remember when I was a kid that had something to do with “Little Indians”.)

Remember, I had them put in a 2 stage trigger when I sent it to them to fix the jamming problem it was having. I was going to be really cheap and just buy a 2 stage and put it in myself, until they informed me that, according to a federal national database that they can tap into, I’m an Idiot. The reason is because they will install any parts you buy from them for free. (Did I tell you the trigger was as smooth as butter yet? Well, it is!)

I think I’m going to go make a dead squirrel video, since I’m feeling a whole lot perkier now that my rifle’s back.

Bushmaster has great customer service. Period.

I called them and told them my rifle had an eating disorder, and almost nothing would go down like it was supposed to. So, the guy I was talking to said no problem, and transferred me to the nice Lady who gives out RA’s (Return Authorizations). I gave her the serial number on the gun, my name and address, phone number and email address, and she told me she would email me a FedEx return label ASAP.

Then I asked her if I could send the whole gun, instead of just the upper, and have them install the 2 stage trigger while they had it. She said no problem, and that they wouldn’t even charge me for installing it, since I was buying it from them. It was definitely the easiest return and fix I’ve ever dealt with with a gun company. (Winchester once told me they could fix a rifle I had just bought from Big 5 (broken), but I wouldn’t get it back for 3-6 months.)

I got the FedEx label and the RA in my email about 15 minutes later. WOW! Now all I have to do is print the label, slap it on the box with my rifle in it and head on down to FedEx. How cool is that?

The best part of this whole thing is that they didn’t give me any hassles, they actually acted like they were happy to help me and, best of all, I’ll be able to shoot the Verminator under the table. This is because I have a better barrel, and once they put in my 2 stage trigger, my groups will probably drop to 3/8th at 100 yards. (I’m shooting around .6 inch groups at a 100 yards now, and that’s with the 200 lbs trigger pull that my Bushmaster has now.) Of course, if we shoot at anything over 100 yards, he will still win, because he actually spent more than $100.00 for his scope, which means he can see what he’s shooting at. LOL

Squirrel Sniper

I tried to use my .223 V Match from Bushmaster*, but it’s jamming like crazy, so I was stuck shooting my 17. My V Match shoots a tighter group than his Varminter does, but that doesn’t really count when it jams on every other round. (My V match actually shoots a sub 3/4 inch group where his Varminter shoots a 1 inch group.)

But, I digress. Back to the squirrel hunting….

We couldn’t find the rancher whose ranch we usually shoot at, so, we drove up and down highway 3 between Lewiston and Enterprise, and knocked on doors until we found a very nice man that told us we could hunt one of his fields. We drove up to the field and Verminator set up his benchrest looking up a small gully in the field, while I took my 17 and wandered up to the top of the hill.

The field looked like it was about a half section, about 300 acres or so, and we could see squirrels occasionally running hither and yon through the grass. The rancher said he had just pulled the cattle off the fields, so the grass wasn’t very long and seeing the squirrels wasn’t the problem it usually is this time of year.

As I was walking up to the top of the hill, about 50,000 higher than I was, and covered with glaciers, (well, maybe it was only 200 feet above me, but remember, I’m old, fat, and eat Twinkies) I could here the Verminator behind me terminating squirrels with extreme prejudice. I could hear screaming and crying and the sound of battle over the next ridge. (I think he was on full auto and afraid of being overrun.) By the time I got half way up the hill, my heart gave out and I died.

When I came to, the Verminator was still shooting, so I might have recovered before I actually got more brain damage from lack of oxygen, but, there’s no way I can prove that.

I sat down on a rock and a couple of minutes later, the squirrels started to pop their heads out of their holes to see what I was doing. What I was doing was popping their heads off when they popped them out of the hole. It was kind of like playing whack-a-mole at Chuck E. Cheeses, but without all the screaming kids. If you guys have seen any of the squirrel hunting videos that we have done, then you know that when you hit a squirrel in the chest or throat with a ballistic tip bullet, their heads sometimes go straight up for 10 feet or more.

I had to keep moving, because the squirrels I was shooting were country squirrels who lived quite aways away from their neighbors, while the squirrels that the Verminator was shooting in his little gully were city squirrels and lived in high-rises; up and down both sides of a major squirrel highway. In other words, I was having to walk a long ways, shoot a squirrel and then hike on, while he just sat at his bench rest and piled the bodies up while drinking Perrier and having his nails done. OK, I’m jealous. Did you pick that up by the whiny tone in my voice?

We shot that field for around 5 hours or so, and ended up taking about 80 squirrels. I had 37 confirmed kills and 4 maybes, while he had 44 kills. I asked him how many maybes he had and he said real men didn’t count maybes. I told him his nails looked nice. See how pleasant I can be, even in the face of rudeness?

We quit shooting around 4pm, because the squirrels were all dead and we had forgotten to put on sunscreen. We went and thanked the rancher for letting us shoot his field and headed over to see the rancher whose ranch we usually shoot at. He was there, so we went out and looked over his property, but we had done such a good job whacking the squirrels on his place, that we only took around 20 in 2 hours.

I told Verminator that I thought we were so good at killing squirrels, that maybe we should start moving from field to field instead of sitting in one placing and actually killing them all before moving on. Of course, the ranchers do want us to kill them all, but I don’t want to put myself out of business. The Verminator told me I was an Idjit, or in police parlance, an eye dee 10 tango. I think that mean I’m really cool or something, I’ll have to look it up.

He also said that if we were that good, we should be able to charge for clearing fields, instead of begging our way from ranch to ranch. I think we’re that good, but he says I’m full of something stinky and that there are million more squirrels underground, just waiting for us to leave so that they can rebuild. I think he’s full of it, but we will know more next year when we return to some of the field we shot this year and see if he’s right or if I am. (I’m pretty sure that even if he’s right, I’m going to lie and tell you I was… Stay tuned.)

In conclusion, we got back to Walla Walla at 10:30 last night, I’m burnt to a frazzle, I’m tired and my eyes hurt from being windblown and sunfried. I didn’t shoot any tape, because I was selfish and just wanted to kill squirrels. I have tons of footage I haven’t turned into video yet, so that’s not really a problem. If you drop by from time to time this winter, there may be new footage up, you never know.

SquirrelSniper

*I thought I had a Varminter too, but I just looked it up and mines a V Match, not the Varminter like I thought.

The Verminator’s Varminter from Bushmaster is a really cool gun, with a flat-top for good scope marriage, a heavy barrel and a really frickin awesome two-stage trigger. Basically this rifle is a dream come true for squirrel hunters who need to reach out and put their rounds in the same one inch group at 300 yards. OK, maybe 2 inch groups at 300 yards. But, the point is that this is a very accurate varmint and squirrel type rifle that even a tree hugger would be proud to own; maybe.

But, there was a problem with it. It wouldn’t load all types of ammo. Some ammunition would feed, and some wouldn’t. Some wouldn’t cycle the action all the way, so their would be all types of jams, stove pipes, bent and dented cartridges and just basic overall mayhem happening in the recieval, clipal, loadal area of the rifle. In other words, nothing was working right except when a round actually left the end of the barrel.

Enter Bushmaster. The Verminator called Bushmaster customer support and said, “hey my Varminter won’t load all types of ammunition”.

The Bushmaster people said, “We’ll have a box to you right away. Stick it in the box, send it to us and we’ll fix it.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but most companies think that their customer service department was set up to run customers around until they get fed up and leave the company alone. Not Bushmaster. They actually did what they said they would do. They sent a box with postage already on it. They fixed it in a couple of days. Then Bushmaster shipped the Verminator his Verminator and it was fixed. And the whole process took less than 2 weeks; How’s that for customer support?

The bottom line is that from now on, when I buy semi-automatic rifles, they will all come from Bushmaster. When you find a company that builds a good product, charges a fair price for it, then stands behind their products whole heartedly and with awesome customer service, you give them your business for the rest of your life.

Good Job Bushmaster!

Don’t worry, all you tree huggers, it didn’t kill him, just gave him a headache. You can see the 17 HMR bounce off of his fricken head at 50 yards. After I finally got him in the head, he didn’t come back out of his hole, but he’s probably fine and will only have a hangover in the morning, along with a really cool dueling scar. LOL

Double click on the play button to get the video to play.

SquirrelSniper

VERMINATOR has been telling me that my rifle, with the 1/9 twist is going to like heavier ammo; stuff over 60 grains. Well, if you remember, last week, while shooting squirrels, I dropped 40 squirrels out of 45 shots at 100-125 yards, with Black Hills 55 grain soft points that were so light that they wouldn’t even cycle my action. I had to load each round by hand, just like a bolt action; VERMINATOR says it’s cause they’re a soft point and the AR-15 is made for full metal jacket. But, I digress.

So, I loaded up the Power-Shok to try it out. After firing off a few rounds for zero with the new ammunition, I fired a 7 round group for the fun of it… the 7 rounds, at 100 yards were all on the same line in the 1 inch box on the target and the whole group came in at under 3/4 of an inch. Can you say dead squirrels?

VERMINATOR shot the same ammo through his run-of-the-mill AR-15, I don’t know the brand… starts with a DPMS…. or something like that, and couldn’t get his groups under 2.5″. To me, that means spending the extra money on the, pretty, V Match Carbine from Bushmaster just paid off.

Correction: VERMINATOR’s AR-15 is a Colt, not a DPMS. He has a DPMS, but it is in .308, and it shoots just fine. Sorry, DPMS people…….